


The Same Deep Water as You

by JGogoboots



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Time, Friends to Lovers, I had a lot of moments in my head, M/M, potential junctures where these two could have leaned into each other for comfort, so I gave into the urge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-03-30 03:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19033405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JGogoboots/pseuds/JGogoboots
Summary: You were there. The words had stung, and I wasn’t sure if he’d merely flung them my way to hurt me, to volley back an assurance of how little I mattered, softening the blow of my own denouncement of him only seconds before. And yet… as my mind repeated the words, turning them this way and that, they evolved into something else entirely.The "you were there" scene goes a little differently and sets a series of events in motion. Snapshots of Francis and Richard finding ungainly comfort in each other as everything unravels in the latter half of the book.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if anyone at all will read this, but here it is. Not sure how many chapters this will be. It won't be too terribly long, but I have a series of scenes I have to get out of my head and onto a page!

“I’m still here.” I placed my hand on his lean thigh, the fine weave of his trousers a pleasantly steadying sensation under my fingertips, numb from the frigid air and that strange limbo between awareness and sleep. My body seemed to be protesting the idea of venturing out into the world, being awake and cognizant of the parade of frantic people in search of the fruits of our sinister labor. My eyelids were threatening to close, my limbs tingling with the temptation of drifting back under, into a dark sea of medicated slumber where I hoped to escape the rapid swell of my thoughts. Nightmares were always a possibility, but now that the waking world was one continuous horrorscape, it didn’t seem to make much difference. At least in sleep I had some small chance of reprieve.

Perhaps that was why I did it. At the time, I was unable to trace my motives. The synapses in my brain were firing in a scramble I no longer possessed the wherewithal to arrange into an order that made sense. One minute, I was adamantly telling him I wasn’t attracted to him and the next, I was offering what probably amounted to cold, misguided comfort on such a morning as this.

He cast me a dubious, sideways glance. Even in this state, a bit rumpled from the previous night’s marathon of alcohol, his collar loose, wrinkles in his normally pressed pants, there was something aesthetically pleasing about him. His face bore the typical signs of fatigue (puffy, sallow skin under the eyes, the exaggerated sheen that whiskey-soaked insomnia imparts to one’s irises), but on his angular features, it had a similar effect to that of the aloof gamines of French New Wave cinema. He looked as though, at any moment, he might light a cigarette, turn to me with a bored, wry look and utter some abstruse existential nonsense. 

“Pull over.”

“Richard—”

“Just do it. Please?”

His gaze darted over to me one more time before he did as I said, mounds of snow crunching under the tires as they gripped the shoulder of the road. He turned off the engine.

Without another word, I leaned over the seat and kissed him. It was awkward; he was still facing resolutely forward, hands gripping the steering wheel, and I had all the floundering finesse of a drunken teenager groping uncertainly for that first contact, as though the relatively simple mechanics of kissing had all but fled my brain. He was stiff and unyielding at first, but then he softened, turning towards me, a hand finding its way into my hair, a tongue winding its way into my mouth, warm and insistent. 

_ You were there.  _ The words had stung, and I wasn’t sure if he’d merely flung them my way to hurt me, to volley back an assurance of how little I mattered, softening the blow of my own denouncement of him only seconds before. And yet… as my mind repeated the words, turning them this way and that, they evolved into something else entirely. I sifted through the events of the past several days, the acrobatics of fabrication all of us had participated in one way or another, fending off Cloke and Marion, Charles with the police, the anxiety-ridden mood that had us all perpetually perched on the edge of composure. It felt as precarious as an amphetamine junkie’s state of paranoid vigilance save for one crucial point: the object of our concerns was no drug-induced phantom. It was very painfully real.

_ You were there.  _ Suddenly, it no longer seemed an offensive sentiment but one of pure practicality. There was a maelstrom inside us all, a churning tide that refused to be quelled, and who should we turn to for comfort but each other?

I wrestled with the fastenings of his trousers, our kisses now long past tentative and squarely in feverish territory, a hungry mapping of lips and tongue that had a note of desperation in it, but when my fingers dipped into the waistband of his underwear — I nearly chuckled at that moment, for there was something strangely comical about one as well dressed as Francis wearing underwear. I found myself wondering what they were made of, where he bought them, whether they needed to be dry cleaned. — his fingers wrapped around my wrist. He pulled away, his lips spit-slick and pink as the tulips cluttering every surface of the twins’ apartment.

“What are you doing?” He was a tad breathless, his eyes drooping with lust, and even in my confused state, I found a little room to feel egotistical about it.

“Do you need me to spell it out for you?” 

He laughed, a clipped sound that was equal parts derisive and shocked. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I didn’t really know what the hell had gotten into me either. He opened his lovely mouth once more, his eyes widening, but he seemed to reconsider whatever protestations were poised on his tongue and, instead of speaking, he kissed me, his hand firm on the back of my neck.

My fingers were still frozen on the precipice, but when we fell into a rhythm once again, his soft moans dissolving on my tongue, his fingers curling in the hair at the base of my neck, I regained my courage and reached further down, finding him hard and warm in my hand. I didn’t know what I was doing; the only cock I’d ever touched was my own, but I was bemused to find that I liked it. The weight of him in my hand, the heated throb that called to mind the blood pulsing within him, was oddly comforting, a solid truth I could grasp onto. 

I began to wonder why I didn’t employ sex for a distraction more often. These days, it interested me so little. The longer I spent with our odd little clan, sequestered among the plants and ornate desks in Julian’s sprawling office or within the halls of the imposing yet charming Gothic mansion of Francis’s aunt’s, I felt myself drifting further from the conventional desires of my peers. What was interesting about drinking foamy keg beer and disingenuously flirting with a girl I was sure to be bored with from the start, following her to a dingy bedroom with posters covering the walls only to grope for one another in the dark, inexpert caresses neither of us would remember much of in the morning? I was bewitched by things I considered to hold far more value, and as it were, this led to my spare encounters feeling hollow, a waste of time I always regretted in the aftermath. But now, here with Francis, stroking him as he panted in my mouth, the windows fogging as the car grew colder, the quiet blanket of April’s unexpected winter resurgence surrounding us, I felt I could understand the appeal. I opened my eyes and saw his pale eyelashes fluttering, his freckled cheeks tinted pink, that shock of copper hair disheveled from my hands. 

My lips migrated to his cheek, the sharp line of his jaw, his long, ivory throat. I heard the soft thump of his head falling back against the seat, and suddenly I was aware that I was panting just as hard as he was, my own trousers constricted from a burgeoning erection. Normally, I would have had a crisis about this, palpitations in my chest as I sought to rationalize this reaction away, but I was too transfixed by the way Francis felt, the way he sounded, breathy little moans as he bucked into my hand. 

I mouthed at his ear, letting my breaths escape there as though they might remain clandestine, given only to him instead of the more volatile, untamed air where they could drift away to be heard by anyone. He seemed to like it, an alluring whine escaping his lips. 

I wondered if I liked it because it was Francis, someone with whom I could share the darkest parts of myself as they were also the darkest parts of him. I licked and sucked at his earlobe and thought of  Phaedrus extolling the virtues of soldiers who became lovers, how it strengthened their resolve on the battlefield, fed into their passion and bravery until they could wield their affection like a secret weapon sharper than any sword. Would this fortify us against the challenges yet to come? Would we be brothers in arms if all of our subterfuge began to crumble around us?

The rise and fall of his chest became more erratic, his gasps broken and higher in pitch, and I knew it was only a matter of time. He reached out and cupped my cheek as he came, sticky heat cascading over my hand as his mouth met mine once again. When I pulled back, we caught one another’s eyes, a rare carefree moment passing between us, the endorphins coursing through us punching through the fog of our misfortune.

No sooner had the spell fallen over us than it dissipated, blown past like the fat snowflakes that had descended upon Hampden, dusting our shoulders and hiding our secrets. I withdrew, holding my soiled hand away from my body, unsure what to do with it. 

“Glove compartment,” Francis mumbled, and I blinked stupidly at him. “There’s a handkerchief in there,” he clarified when I made no move to open it.

I undid the latch and saw the folded white cloth, grabbing it with my clean hand. It was a crisp white, large as a dinner napkin at the Brasserie when unfolded but softer, gauzier, Francis’s initials embroidered in crimson in the middle of it. Perhaps I was prone to seeing signs in everything at the time, searching my environment for indicators of what to do and what was to come, a bit of the delirium I’d experienced at Leo’s returning, but at the time, that moment of wiping my hand on his handkerchief seemed to encapsulate everything. The delicacy of the fabric on my fingers paired with the crudeness of what we’d just done seemed reminiscent of this whole eccentric group in which I was now enmeshed, the picture of refinement on the surface with an unsuspectingly cruel, calculating underbelly to which no one was the wiser.

“Francis,” I started, clutching the cloth in my fist, not quite sure what I was trying to say.

“Don’t,” he replied with a surprising curtness and then, softer, sadder, more stinging in its melancholy than any harsher words might be, “Just don’t.” 

I cautiously raised my eyes, wondering just what it was that he didn’t want me to do. Repeat the strained moment that had begun this car trip, my need to insist that I felt nothing for him? It would have sounded gossamer thin considering the events of mere moments ago. 

Then again, I suppose it was rather thin the first time I said it too. 

I still have that handkerchief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of all the Hampden clan, I have the utmost affection for Francis, and he gets such a raw deal in the end. I mean, everyone does, but one of the things I find that makes me particularly fond of him is that he's the only one who ever has real, lengthy, unguarded conversations about himself with Richard? Especially after Bunny's body is discovered, he has some really frank talks with Richard that make me wonder how much closer these two could have been if things went differently.
> 
> Anyway, I decided to reread this book recently and found myself in shambles, crying quite a bit at the end. While I think that book is utter perfection from start to finish, I still can't help but write a bit of wish fulfillment here (although not without its angst, but... hopefully still a tad bit more uplifting). 
> 
> I'm [@punchedbymarkesmith](http://punchedbymarkesmith.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr if you want to scream about this book with me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another scene, this one taking place a few days later, after Bunny's body has been found and Judy and Tracy have been spending time with Richard to cheer him up. I hope at least the one person reading this is still reading it haha.

Over the next few days, there wasn’t much time to contemplate our budding romance — if one could refer to two rough, hurried encounters as such — and so, as with the previous incident in my room, an unspoken pact seemed to fall between us, a decree to never speak of it again. Sometimes Francis’s eyes would flit to mine across the room and, for a moment, there would appear to be something — not a longing exactly but a question — written in his gaze, a brief but undeniable acknowledgement whose nature I wasn’t quite sure of. Was he looking to me for a silent signal? And if so, what signal was I meant to give?

Everything happened so quickly and yet, time also seemed to pass through an elongated lens, stretching and warping like honey slowly dripping through a fine sieve. It seemed we were all stuck in purgatory’s vast, horrific waiting room, atrophying bit by bit in a heightened state of suspense whose wire-taut tension I wasn’t sure I could endure much longer, and yet when the snow melted and Bunny’s body was found, I had a disorienting sensation, a feeling as though mere seconds had passed since that moment on the ravine. It was as though all of time was happening at once, moments layered atop one another in a simultaneous barrage whose force threatened to knock me to my feet. 

Everyone else was preoccupied — Henry with the Corcorans in Connecticut and the twins hunkered down with a fragile, beery Cloke at their apartment — but Francis remained unburdened by any of the players in this absurd Greek tragedy come to life, no one to tend to but himself. It was because of this that we began to see more of one another without the shadow of impending doom and our co-conspirators impeding whatever was or wasn’t happening between us. 

Although I’d enjoyed the attempts at comfort made by Judy Poovey and her friend Tracy — their rambling stories that never seemed to arrive at any discernible conclusion, their much more paltry life concerns a welcome respite from my far more ominous ones, their neon-colored alcoholic concoctions which, while dying my tongue blue and causing me to vaguely wonder what radioactive ingredient they contained, succeeded in keeping me suspended in a much needed alcoholic stupor — there would always come a time when Tracy would ungracefully exit to leave the two of us alone. My disinterest in Judy as a sexual being was stronger than ever, but still, I did have a token of appreciation for her mollifying efforts, misguided though they may have been.

By the time Francis began to show up, exuding that aloof, intimidating air that had so captivated me from afar, those early brief glimpses when he would brush by me on campus, a flurry of greatcoat billowing like a cloak behind him, I was grateful for his effortless talent for making Judy and Tracy uncomfortable until they quietly left. 

At first, nothing of note occurred between us, although a collection of minuscule moments (fingertips brushing as a glass was passed between us, thighs pressing together as he leaned across me to grab an ashtray) amassed in my head, torturing me with speculation. At that point in time, I was still far from comfortable with what Francis had awakened within me, and I underwent many fierce rounds of self-flagellation, attempting to exonerate myself from any responsibility for what had happened against my desk and in his car.

Until one day, bursting into my room looking more cheerful than any of us had for quite some time, he informed me in sloppy Greek that Mrs. Corcoran was only requesting the autopsy because of a need to prove that Bunny hadn’t been under the influence at the time of his death. At first, he paid no attention to Judy and Tracy, coldly ignoring their presence as he often did, but eventually he grew fidgety beside me, fixing the two of them with an icy glare that took all of two minutes to chase them away. 

“Feel like celebrating?” he asked with a smile, and I was struck again by just how alluring he could be, one long, lithe leg draped over the other, sockless in his expensive Italian loafers, that mop of brassy red hair, his impossibly high cheekbones. I’d never seen anyone like Francis before I arrived at Hampden, and I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone like him since. “You’re staring.”

“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head as if emerging from a trance. “I don’t know that we have anything worth celebrating yet.”

“That very well may be, but I don’t give a damn. I’ve been coiled into myself like I’m living in an underground bunker, waiting for the explosions to sound overhead. If I don’t unwind the spring, I fear it will turn into a permanent ulcer.” He plucked a flask from his jacket pocket and began to rummage around my room for glasses. 

“Mugs over there.” I waved absently toward the dresser, and he picked up the two mugs, squinting to examine them and then wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“I’m just going to wash these.”

I nodded and flopped onto my back, staring at the unremarkable white ceiling, wondering how many Hampden students had looked at it in a drunken haze or finals-induced sleep deprivation, and if anyone else before me had ended up in quite the spectacularly gnarled position in which I currently found myself. 

Francis returned, a spring in his step that annoyed me. I couldn’t fathom why this small bit of news had altered his temperament to such a drastic degree. From where I stood, we were far from out of the woods.

We drank until the flask was empty, my morose mood finally lifting to Francis’s level by the time we’d finished it. Indolent from alcohol and the fatigue of the bustle of the last few days, we despaired over the end of the bourbon, but then I remembered the awful bottom shelf tequila Tracy had left, the main ingredient in her phosphorescent margaritas. We grimaced as the taste hit our tongues but drank it anyway, my demeanor gradually loosening until, quite without warning, I seemed to have found myself curling toward him, my legs bumping against his as we lay on the bed, poised on our sides facing one another.  

Francis took a drink from his mug, but his half-reclining position caused a big splash of it to land on his immaculately starched collar. He pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and dabbed at it.

“God, look at me. I’m appalling. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life looked quite the mess I have in the past week.”

“You’re not… handsome in the strictest sense, no.” It wasn’t at all an appropriate response to what he was saying, and though he furrowed his brow in confusion, there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. I suppose it was obvious I was quite drunk by then, which might account for his being forgiving of the odd turn in conversation.

“Oh thank you, dear Richard. You really know how to flatter a girl. It truly is a wonder that you remain so thoroughly unattached,” he said with a laugh, taking another hearty sip of tequila. 

“No no, let me finish.” I propped myself up on my elbows, my tone abruptly quite serious as though the distinction I was about to make was of the utmost importance. “I just meant that… while you’re not really… conventionally attractive, you’re—”

“Oh Christ, are you really going to say it  _ again _ ?”

“Nevermind.” I sullenly lay back down with a groan. There was some remaining sober part of me that was aware I would regret the things I’d said and had yet to say, but, as always happens when one tips past a certain level of inebriation, I was like a man possessed but still conscious in the back of his mind somewhere, powerless to regain control but cognizant enough to be fully aware of the damage the entity in control of my body was inflicting. 

There was a pause as we both lay on our backs without touching, our cups abandoned on the nightstand.

“Well, now you’ve made me insatiably curious. What  _ were _ you going to say?” He shifted onto his side, leaning his head on his upturned palm.

“I’ve changed my mind. You don’t deserve it anymore.”

He laughed, and the musical lilt of it warmed my heart in a way I didn’t know was possible at that point in my life. 

“I’ve never seen you like this. Is it the tequila? Come on, tell me.” He playfully jabbed me in the ribs, and when I turned my head to find his mischievous grin and flushed cheeks, I wanted nothing more than to pull him down for a kiss.

“You’re… arresting. You have an interesting face, one that’s hard to forget, one that makes an impression. And isn’t that better than just looking like… I don’t know, stock footage? Does that make sense?”

His eyes softened, and he nodded.

“Yes, it does. I take it all back. That’s quite the compliment.”

“I remember the first time I saw you. How many people can we ever really say that about in our lives? I remember what you were wearing, the way you walked, the way you…” I stopped, my face suddenly growing very hot as I realized that I was waxing poetic about Francis’s beauty and was in danger of ending with a mawkish comparison to a Renaissance painting if I didn’t stop. Had I always felt this way? Was I just drunk? Out of nowhere, it seemed that the sluice of a dam had been lifted, and I wanted him with an intensity I was struggling to reconcile.

“Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. Papen?” In a rare moment of pop culture participation, before our lives had taken this decidedly steep descent, we’d both gone to see  _ The Graduate _ with Camilla, the cinema showing it in a series of movies with a post-grad theme, all of which were terribly depressing.

Francis had morosely puffed on his cigarette the whole time despite being repeatedly told there was no smoking in the theater — I pitied the poor pimply faced usher who was the recipient of his entitled diatribe on the subject — and when Dustin Hoffman sank to the bottom of the pool in his scuba gear, he pointed to the screen and said in a dramatic tone, “That’ll be me quite soon. I’m sure of it.” It had seemed benignly humorous at the time, Francis being Francis (in my opinion, people criminally underrated how funny he could be), but now it seemed chillingly prophetic.

Despite the hardness in my jeans, the relatively safe privacy of my room, and the fact that I was clearly full of desire for him, I held my breath when he stroked a hand across my stomach. 

“Why such a shy boy all of a sudden? Would you rather I bring the car around? If memory serves, you were considerably bolder then.” His voice had lowered to a rumbling, conspiratorial pitch that made my blood pump thickly between my legs, and, to my intense mortification, I found that all I could do in response was let out a needy whimper and close my eyes. Francis seemed to take that as an endorsement, and presently, I felt gentle, moist lips on my neck, the hand on my stomach traveling up my chest until he was clasping my chin, turning my head until our mouths met.

When I kissed him back, a heady relief washed over me. All of the jittery panic that had taken up residence in my muscles, my blood, and my brain was suddenly soothed as he pulled me closer, bringing our bodies flush. He slotted a leg between mine, and I could feel his erection rubbing against my thigh, his hands roaming my back, slipping under my shirt to stroke heated skin. We broke apart to shed our shirts, and as I gazed upon his pale chest, the flat planes of his stomach, he tilted his head curiously.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know… I didn’t expect you to look at me like that,” he confessed quietly, his eyes meeting mine.

“Neither did I.” I was overcome with the desire to cover his stomach with kisses, nuzzle in his belly and absorb his warmth. A dark fantasy flashed across my mind, an urge to crawl inside him and remain there until all of this was over, burrowing like the animals who searched for shelter when the snow began to fall upon Hampden, their heads staying below the earth until the first sign of spring. I roughly pulled him to me, my hands on his lower back, and pressed my mouth to the skin below his navel, finding it alarmingly soft and delicate. I couldn’t get enough of it underneath my tongue, the jut of his hipbone, the slightly concave area beside it, the fair, downy hair trailing down to disappear beneath his trousers, I wanted to think about this and nothing else, to chase away all the specters outside my door by memorizing every inch of his body. I felt certain I was half out of my mind, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. Not when he was moaning so sweetly above me, his knees widening on the bed as he sank his fingers in my hair, ran them down my arms and my back, told me how good it felt, how much he wanted me.

Despite all this, I wasn’t prepared for the sight of his naked body, and when he stepped away to take off the rest of his clothes, returning to the bed fully nude, lounging on his side like a Henry Scott Tuke painting come to life, a ruddy cheeked, fresh-faced youth bathing in the sea, my panting breath crossed over from arousal and into panic.

“Are you all right?” His eyes widened, and I wondered what ridiculous expression I was wearing.

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. He was breathtakingly beautiful, and though I still wanted to reach out and touch him, I also felt as though I was standing on a line in the sand, one I feared crossing. I don’t know why it felt so different from what had already happened between us, but I was certain that, if we continued, there was no going back this time.

“Okay.” His voice was soft, the reassuring tone one might use with a stray cat to coax it inside for a saucer of milk. “Do you want me to go?”

“No.” The brusque sound of it surprised us both.

“Okay,” he said again, chewing his bottom lip as he considered this. “Why don’t we just lie down for a minute?”

I nodded, and Francis lifted the sheet, rumpled from where we’d been rolling around on it, and slipped underneath it to cover his bottom half. I wanted to chastise him for treating me like a child who needed pacification, hiding away the object of my anxiety so that I didn’t have to think about it, but I could hardly contest it when it was achieving the desired effect. I calmed down a bit, the cadence of my breath slowing to a more manageable pace, and got under the sheet with him. An awkward silence stretched between us, and I was at a loss for what to do next. I was beginning to get the impression that Francis was no stranger to this game of hot and cold, and while I hated myself for perpetrating it, I couldn’t stop the rising tide of conflict within me.

I was so cold without his body touching mine, but I feared reaching out only to recoil again, starting the cat and mouse game anew. Gradually, I inched closer until our arms were touching. He glanced over at me, tentative and slow.

“Can I kiss you again?” Consequences be damned, I asked because, potential fallouts or not, I couldn’t bear the strained hush of the room.

“If you want to.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile this time. It was a wistful expression I was sure he’d worn many times before.

“I do.”

He remained where he was, waiting for me to come to him.

I did, trying to pour all of my desire into that kiss, hoping he couldn’t sense any of the misgivings that remained. It wasn’t long before we were back in the blissful bubble I’d burst, lips and hands freely exploring each other, rutting against one another with that same desperation that had overtaken me days before. 

“What do you want?” he breathlessly asked, hands suggestively kneading my ass. 

“I don’t know… I…” It was a simple question that seemed impossible to answer. “Anything you’ll give me.” 

Francis chuckled into my neck, his teeth scraping across my pulse point.

“You’re irresistible when you’re needy like this.”

  
  


***

  
  


When I woke, I was relieved to see Francis sleeping peacefully next to me, one arm draped across my chest. Although my head was still a jumbled mess, I somehow felt it would have been worse if he’d slipped away in the night. 

Even in my groggy state, my cock twitched at the memory of his wicked mouth around me, his eyes darting up to meet mine as he swallowed me down. I had writhed and moaned an altogether embarrassing amount, clutching at his shoulders in what I was sure was a bruising grip, but he’d given every indication that he loved it, wearing the smuggest smile as he stretched beside me afterward, gratefully accepting another novice effort on my part as I touched him, my teeth sinking into the space between his neck and shoulder as he spilled on my hand.

“Mmm.” He stirred and shuffled closer, burying his head in the crook of my arm.

“Francis? Are you asleep?”

“I  _ was _ _,”_ he grumbled. “God, my head feels like the inside of cement mixer. Consuming Judy Poovey’s tequila was not one of our brighter ideas.”

“I think it was technically Tracy’s, but you’re right. Terrible idea.” I ran a hand down my face and tried to ignore the throb behind my eyes and the desert in my mouth. “Need water.”

“Yes. Very good idea. Must get up. Must get water,” Francis feebly replied, but made no attempt to move. “Too comfortable. You get it.”

“If I get up, you’ll have to move too, so I think that’s a pretty weak argument.” 

“I see your point and I raise you this: I gave you a very fantastic orgasm, the likes of which, judging by how far your eyes rolled back in your head, I’m certain was the best you’ve ever had.” He kissed my neck and squeezed my waist.

“Fuck you,” I laughed. It was completely unsurprising to find that Francis would talk about his sexual prowess this way.

“Mmm, even better point. If you get the water, you can fuck me when you come back. Would you like that?” he purred in my ear, his tongue licking along the outer edge as he reached down and palmed my half-hard cock. I moaned at the thought, hating how easily he made me feel wanted, how easily he gave voice to ideas I didn’t know were planted so deeply in my head until he beckoned them forth. “On second thought, I’ll get the water. Leave you to stew in that thought for a minute. Do you have a robe?”

“In the closet.”

He hopped up with an energy that made my head throb more intensely just by witnessing it, sorted through our pile of discarded clothes and pulled his underwear on before slipping his arms into my robe. It looked good on him, just the right amount of too big as to make him look rather charmingly diminutive.

When he returned, he was grinning triumphantly, two rather large bottles of water cradled in his arms.

“I pilfered these from the fridge. Rebecca Stevens,” he brandished a warning note which had been taped to the bottles, “will be furious tomorrow, and my only regret is that I won’t be around to witness it.” 

He handed me one of the bottles, and we sat on the edge of the bed, silently gulping water. The note from Rebecca was on the floor, a detestable reminder.

“Bunny used to steal from the fridge all the time.”

Francis stopped moving, his open bottle halfway to his mouth.

“Once, he took an entire cheesecake. He complained about how awful it tasted the whole time he was eating it.”

Francis laughed mirthlessly.

“That sounds like him.” We didn’t say anything for a moment, finishing our water as the ghost of Bunny descended upon the room. “Do you miss him?”

I looked into Francis’s eyes, astonishingly bright without the barrier of the pince-nez. Strange how, during all of this, the surreptitious meetings, the careful plans, the perpetual glances over our shoulders as we raced against the consequences of our actions, none of us had stopped to ask that question. I didn’t know if it was because we truly didn’t care, had hardened ourselves out of self-preservation, or if it was because that stage of grief hadn’t caught up to us yet, hadn’t wrapped us in its sticky, unwieldy web. In hindsight, in light of the events that followed, I now believe it was the latter, but I can only speak for myself.

“I don’t know… I haven’t really had time to think about it.” It was perhaps a feeble answer, and to an outside party, might have painted me in a monstrous light, but Francis only nodded sagely.

“Let’s go back to bed.” 

He kissed my shoulder and tugged me back under the covers, his limbs intertwining with mine so seamlessly, I dreamed we were growing together like vines on a trellis.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm publishing this rather late at night, but I feel like since it's just a couple of us, I have the freedom to do that without it making too much of a difference haha. TMI but I've been fighting a bit of a depression tide at the moment so I don't know that I took as much editing care with this chapter as the previous two. I hope you enjoy the angsty feels nonetheless.

“Sorry sorry, I know I’m bursting in on you, but I have only like ten minutes and Tracy is a heinous bitch when I’m late—”

I groaned at the injustice of the harsh light filtering in through the window and Judy’s obnoxious drone assaulting my ears. It took a minute for me to realize why she’d stopped talking. Her expression vacillated between confusion, shock, and amusement before finally landing on irritation, crossing her arms as her gaze alternated between Francis and me.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised. Everyone says your whole little group fucks each other.”

Before I could respond, she’d slammed the door and all I could think was “maybe you should’ve knocked then.”

“Pity she left before I could formulate a witty comeback. I’ve always fantasized about this moment.”

I sat up and raised my eyebrows at Francis.

“Not with you,” he clarified. “It’s just a situation you acquire a taste for when you’re used to being someone’s dirty secret. When I was sixteen, I was sleeping with the captain of the lacrosse team, and I used to pray that his pretty waif of a girlfriend would find us together. I used to imagine the smirk I’d give her, what loutish things I’d say about her boyfriend’s cock while she gaped in horror.”

I think these moments were partly responsible for the level of comfort I enjoyed with Francis. The others were terribly guarded. Details of their families, their past, any morsel of naked truth about who they were as people, were only revealed in cryptic snippets I eagerly gathered like jagged pieces of an incomplete puzzle. Charles, Camilla, Henry… all of them were sketches, hurried hand-drawn portraits I didn’t possess the skills nor tools to fill in. Granted, it was this aura of mystery that initially made me want so fiercely to penetrate their circle. Victories that are hard won taste all the sweeter, don’t they? But are rarified things special by virtue of their rarity only? Fitting that they should have all had this quality, as it is the crux of wealth. It’s written in the objects they acquire without purpose, the untouched pieces of finery they surround themselves with, things whose worth is assigned through a strange tradition of inner circle validation that has no real meaning. Looking back, it’s hard to explain how easily I was mystified by it all, how vital and raw and important it seemed when in fact it was much hollower up close than it looked from far away.

Francis was far from immune to these shallow behaviors of the wealthy. He fiercely clung to the lifestyle to which he was accustomed, but there was a tenderness, a vulnerability underneath it all that suggested he was more than just a product of his circumstance. Underneath his pretension, his elitist affectations, all the qualities that marked him as a boy bred in the world of Swiss boarding schools and bespoke suits, Francis just wanted to be loved. I believe it was this that united the two of us. Although for drastically different reasons, we both had families who had failed to nurture us in the ways we craved. With Francis, in some ways, I think it must have been an even more confusing situation. With my family, I could walk away without regret. There was nothing to keep me there. But Francis had grown quite used to having everything. Everything, of course, except that which he most desperately wanted. What must it have been like to have so very much and yet still be at a deficit? 

I wonder if you will think my sympathies misplaced. There are many more pressing areas to direct one’s concern than the plight of a rich boy whose family would prefer that his sexuality disappear, but as we grew closer, I began to see the flicker of pain in his eyes when he would speak of it, the way he freely told me how he felt, unafraid to confide in me to an extent the others never approached. The more our lives began to depend on the furtive, the more attractive Francis’s candor became. 

And then there was Bunny, who had welcomed me into the fold with open arms in those early days when the others remained austere, careful to keep me at arm’s length. I tried not to think about that, but the realization would creep up on me at inopportune times, a memory of Bunny clapping a hand on my back, calling me “Dickie boy” and goodnaturedly scolding Henry for testing my knowledge of Greek, as though rigorous examination were necessary for him to deem my company acceptable. Bunny had been off putting and uncouth in more ways than I could count, but, in the way that memory becomes selective when it is infected by guilt, recollections of his cheery demeanor, the way he’d been the first to greet me enthusiastically, began to circulate at the edges of my mind.

“Judy likes to gossip.” As soon as I said, I regretted it. Although Francis was careful to arrange his features into apathy as quickly as possible, I didn’t miss the flash of disappointment in his eyes. 

He tossed the covers off, and I promptly felt ashamed at the way I admired his svelte frame in the light of day despite having just made it clear I didn’t want anyone else to be aware of how much I liked it. He slid into my robe and left too swiftly for my dumbfounded tongue to form words. I heard muffled conversation, Judy’s unmistakably shrill voice, and in a couple of minutes, he returned.

“She won’t say anything. Although she’s feeling a bit jealously vindictive, she likes you too much to turn this into rumor mill fodder. She certainly made a point of reminding me that this was for  _ your _ sole benefit though, my feelings be damned,” he said without looking at me, shucking off the robe and beginning to dress.

“Francis, I…” I trailed off, at a loss for what to say. An apology seemed insufficient and insincere. 

“I’ll you at the twins’ tonight? Supposedly it’s for dinner, but I’m getting a distinct whiff of somber news. I suspect the funeral date has been set.” He gave me an unreadable look as he buttoned his French cuffs, and I nodded. “Well then…”

He took a step toward me but halted. I wondered if he was debating whether or not to kiss me goodbye. 

He didn’t.

I didn’t blame him; I’d hardly earned it.   
  
  


***

  
  


“Cloke has been so dour. It’s not that I don’t understand, but it’s awful to watch while we’re trying to keep it together ourselves. We have to be careful of what we save every minute of the day.” Camilla heaped my plate with pot roast and potatoes and vegetables roasted with rosemary and garlic. The smell was heavenly, my stomach growling as I was reminded of how little I’d eaten over the past few days. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remember to take basic care of myself. 

“Where is he now?” Francis asked, taking a sip of wine. He’d barely acknowledged me when I’d arrived.

“Who knows? Off to meet some unsavory character, I think. He might be moping around here, but that hasn’t stopped him from dealing drugs, apparently.” Charles rolled his eyes and took a gulp of whiskey. He’d already smelled of liquor when I arrived, and he continued to drink at an alarming pace the whole evening. Francis and I exchanged wary glances.

“So we’ll be heading down with him tomorrow, and I imagine the two of you will take Francis’s car?” Camilla dutifully ignored her brother. I imagine she’d seen him in far worse condition.

“Sure. Why not?” I didn’t miss the note of sarcasm in Francis’s tone, and neither did Camilla. She made no comment save for a quick feline tilt of her head.

A couple of hours later, we’d all retired to the living room. I was pleasantly tipsy and feeling sorry for myself. I’d pushed away the only person to offer me any sort of solace since my life had taken this remarkably fraught turn, and, uncharacteristically courageous from alcohol, I decided to do something about it.

When I sat on the couch, I looped my arm in Francis’s and leaned my head on his shoulder. Charles and Camilla failed to notice, too busy arguing about tomorrow’s logistics on the other side of the room.

“What are you doing?” Francis leaned down to hiss near my ear.

“Apologizing.” I lifted my head to meet his eyes, and he stared back, unblinking and cold at first. I brushed his hair back from his forehead, and the tense line of his mouth relaxed.

“I’m not a toy you can put back on the shelf when you decide you’re ashamed of me. I’m used to that, and I thought I could do it again, but I can’t. Not now. It’s too much.” 

“I know. I won’t do it again. I’m so fucking far past caring what people think, Francis. It’s starting to seem… insignificant given everything.” I meant it. I’d had hours to stew in the soup of my own despair, and I kept coming to the same conclusion: every bit of relief, every moment in which my jaw had unclenched and my heart had stopped threatening to beat wildly out of chest was due to Francis’s presence. With my grip on life and any semblance of normalcy rapidly sliding away, I was seized by an unbearable panic at the thought of losing the one person who made me feel solid, even if only for a little while.

He took a long, thoughtful drag of his cigarette and exhaled in elegant, curling plumes.

“You better mean that.”

“I do.”

“Well well, how the convoluted plot thickens. I didn’t know you had it in you, Richard.”

I turned my attention to the twins, who were now standing in front of the fireplace looking directly at us.

“Stop it, Charles,” Camilla gently warned, but he waved her off.

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t  _ mind, _ but you should be careful with that one. He’s been known to bite.” Charles drunkenly flopped down into an armchair and laughed as though he’d just made the funniest joke in the world.

“Charles—” Francis started in a sterner voice than I’d ever heard him use.

“Or maybe you like that? Some people do. No judgment from me.” Charles threw his hands up in surrender, but he was gazing at Francis with a fiery intensity. Francis returned it with a challenging gaze of his own, but stood up as though he intended to leave.

“Richard? Do you want a ride home?” He turned to me as he stubbed out his cigarette in a glass ashtray on the coffee table. 

Francis didn’t say anything when Charles raised his eyebrows and canted his head, but I saw the tetchy twitching at the corner of his mouth. 

The last twenty-four hours had been packed with too much tumult for me to entertain the idea of adding to it, yet still, when we were in the car and safely out of earshot, I couldn’t help but ask.

“Why was Charles so upset?”

“He was drunk,” Francis said with a shrug, lighting a cigarette and taking a puff before pulling into the road.

“Francis.” I gave him what I hoped was an unwavering expression. Francis hated to disrupt the peace. He was always quick to plead for resolution when he thought he’d offended me, and I was pleased to see that this was no exception.

“All right, but please don’t be cross with me. My head is spinning already. I don’t want to fight about this.” Francis pulled the car back over to the side of the road and turned to face me. “I’ve been to bed with Charles a few times. Afterward, he always has a very convenient case of amnesia so I never would have expected him to speak about it in front of other people. I know he’s been drinking an awful lot since Bunny, but Christ… normally he’d do anything to keep this a secret. I’m sorry. I would have told you if I thought there was a chance he’d make a fuss.”

“When?” I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. I didn’t remember what it felt like to not have a headache anymore. 

“The first time, I was a freshman and he was a sophomore. We—”

“When was the last time?” As the question left my mouth, I realized I already knew the answer.

Francis took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair.

“The night I kissed you. I left with Charles, as you know, and well… you can fill in the rest.”

“I really was  _ just there, _ wasn’t I?” I laughed bitterly and stared out the window.

“At first, yes. But can you honestly say any different? When I kissed you, I know you weren’t thinking ‘oh thank god, it’s Francis. I’ve wanted him for so long.’ Earlier that night, you had sex with some girl whose Neanderthal boyfriend gave you that black eye. I was  _ just there _ for you too.” He sucked on his cigarette, his free hand manically tapping on the steering wheel.

“I don’t feel that way now.” I said it so softly, I wasn’t sure he’d heard.

“Not  _ now, _ no. I don’t feel that way anymore either, but that night? That night was hell for us both, for  _ all _ of us except maybe Henry, the stoic sociopath. God, sometimes I’d like to slap him just to see if he reacts…” He took another long drag and tapped the ash out the window, “Anyway… my point is, we were reaching for whatever was nearest, whatever looked like the most attractive help.”

I knew he was right, but somehow the fact that it was Charles made it different. The secretive, exclusive, tight-knit nature of the group, the very factor which had attracted me to them, was starting to feel like a burden now, a shackle I couldn’t shake. I had an image of all of them together at the bacchanal, bodies writhing and connecting until they were impossible to distinguish from one another, limbs blending together to create one disturbing, erotic mass, an incestuous heap that disgusted me. Would we ever be able to escape it? Would the whole group always be metaphorically in bed with us, the ghost imprints of their presence standing vigil over us, inextricably linked, ties I could never sever? Now that we were united in the misdeeds we’d committed, I didn’t think separation was possible. It was a haunting thought.

“Richard?”

I sluggishly turned my head to meet his eyes, the gesture taking every ounce of strength. I suddenly felt very heavy and very tired.

“How did everything get like this? I feel so broken.” The honesty of it astounded me. I hadn’t meant to say it, but he didn’t balk, didn’t frown in confusion. He only smiled sadly.

“Me too. Let’s be broken together?”

He offered his hand, and I took it. It felt exactly like it had the first time we met. Bony fingers and the smoothest, softest skin. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't think I'd be done with this for a few more days, but I got inspired/motivated so here you go. :) I love these broken, messy boys. Also, I am such a word/language nerd so I love that the source material gives me perfectly plausible excuses to use words like "quotidian" without anyone balking at it.

Francis and I barely slept that night, tossing and turning in his bed until the sky became a curtain of rich, foreboding sapphire, that deep hue only seen in the predawn. It was a time of day I was usually rather fond of, a stark, blue-black stillness I imagined only to be seen by seafaring folk and insomniacs, lines from Greek epics waltzing through my mind as I romanticized this hour of limbo, a time when the drunken night owl revelry had ceased but the bustle of the morning had yet to commence. Now, there was no poetry to be found in it; I looked at the ghostly moon and felt like a man waiting for the escort who would lead him to the gallows.

I eventually drifted off only to dream that Henry was stripping the veins from my arms, digging into my wrists with a hunting knife and pulling them free in one clean, efficient motion, like copper wires beneath carpet.

“The vessel that has been cleansed is the only vessel befit to receive God,” he drawled in a maddeningly calm voice, his blue eyes like daggers behind his glasses, his sleeves neatly rolled past the elbows, blood running down his sinewy forearms.

When Francis shook me awake, it was after ten. We were already running late, but neither of us were in any mood to expedite the journey so we took our time rousing, taking turns in the shower in hopes that the warm spray might invigorate us. I made coffee while Francis phoned Sophie Dearborn to let her know we’d be headed her way shortly. I remained unclear on what Sophie’s connection was to Bunny, but after days of hearing the student body praise him, sanitizing his memory in the way we often do of the dead, I didn’t question it. We greedily downed several cups of coffee, but it did nothing to stave off the comatose state in which we were both suspended, plodding to the car like a pair of reluctant students begging for a couple more hours of sleep before class. I desperately wished we were headed to such a quotidian fate.

I expected the drive to be an exceedingly dismal one, but Sophie’s company actually helped to assuage some of the dread. She was a pretty, gregarious girl with delicate features —  Francis immediately won her approval by aptly comparing her to Audrey Hepburn, reminding me again that he possessed more social poise and charm than I ever would — and, for an all too brief stretch of time, we laughed and made mindless smalltalk with an FM radio soundtrack until I nearly tricked myself into believing we were normal college students on a leisurely spring drive. 

Francis was asking about her family and friends back home as I listened to an unfamiliar song, my head leaning on the window to watch the light drizzle that had begun. It was heavily overcast, black, pendulous clouds blocking the sun from sight.

_ On a morning from a Bogart movie _

_ In a country where they turn back time _

_ You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre _

_ Contemplating a crime _

I was aloft in a dreamy, nearly out-of-body state, but I slowly came to as I noticed that everyone had gone silent.

“Sorry… I shouldn’t have asked,” Sophie apologized. I glanced at Francis, who looked rather uncomfortable, his posture stiff as he cleared his throat. 

“Apparently I missed something. What did you ask?” I turned around to find a sheepish Sophie.

“Oh… well, I was wondering how long you two had been seeing each other? Again, I know it’s not my business,” she rushed to add, “but I just thought you wouldn’t mind since…” 

She gestured to the space between Francis and me, and it was then that I realized my hand was resting on his thigh. Touching him had become a borderline compulsion, and I felt slightly pathetic about it, like a child reaching for a teddy bear in the middle of the night, warding against the phantoms under the bed. I couldn’t help it. I felt better with my hands on him, with his hands on me. Any link between us was grounding and warm.

Although the past couple of days had taught me that Francis wanted very much to know I wasn’t ashamed of our relationship, we hadn’t exactly covered the finer points of this. The thought of labelling it, going on dates and gazing at one another across a table draped in fine linen, holding hands on starlit strolls, was borderline farcical. We were about to bury our friend. The friend we’d murdered.  

_ There's a hidden door she leads you to _

_ These days, she says, I feel my life _

_ Just like a river running through _

_ The year of the cat _

I looked to Francis for a silent cue, some hint of what he wanted me to say. His eyes remained inscrutable as they shifted to me, but, to my immense pleasure, when I squeezed his thigh, his cheeks bloomed a lovely pink and a reserved smile crept across his lips.

“Oh, Richard and I have been married… what is it, darling? Ten years now?” He shot me a cheeky smile, and I laughed. “We had a very nasty separation around year eight in which I had a whirlwind affair with the poolboy. It ended with an ill-fated trip to Prague in which I realized how very good I have it with Richard and came crawling back. The thing about Richard is that, while he seems quite even-tempered, that’s just the crafty brilliance of him. He’s very good at exacting revenge when you least expect it. He does a lot of silent plotting, and he made me pay dearly.”

“To be fair, it’s not like it’s hard to punish you. Take away your top shelf scotch and force you to eat a cheeseburger or, as you call it, ‘peasant food’, and you’re a sobbing mess, pleading for the torture to end.”

This was barely an exaggeration. Once I’d gone to the Rat with Francis for a late night slice of pizza. His refusal to try it only made me force the issue, mocking him when he relented, approaching the slice with a plastic knife and fork (“You can’t seriously suggest I  _ touch _ this greasy culinary abomination?!”) cautiously sawing off a bite and lowering it onto his tongue with a grimace as though it were filled with fatal toxins. 

Sophie was in stitches by that point, and it was nice to see a genuine, carefree smile from Francis. Those were in such short supply for all of us. 

“Joking aside, it’s a really recent… um, development,” I added, looking to Francis for approval. His smile widened at first but then it faded into a frown.

“Sophie, I hope you don’t think it… rather gauche of us. I suppose, in light of everything, it might seem to be in poor taste.”

I hadn’t thought of that, but as he said it, I began to wonder if he was right.

“No no, not at all. It makes perfect sense. You both knew him, and well… people lean on each other when something like this happens. It’s really not unusual for it to bring people closer together. Anyone who doesn’t understand that hasn’t really experienced loss.” She leaned forward and squeezed our respective shoulders. She was being so kind to us, and it only made me feel worse. Sophie didn’t have the most vital piece of information, the true reason for our guilt about allowing ourselves any happiness in the aftermath of Bunny’s death. 

I met Francis’s eyes, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing.

  
  


*** 

  
  


“I have to get out of here for a while. I can’t take this anymore,” Francis frantically whispered in my ear as Mr. Corcoran broke down for the third or fourth time that day, folding his arms tightly around poor Sophie, who was doing her best to extricate herself while still politely uttering reassurances. 

“Are you sober enough to drive?”

“Yes!” Francis hissed before apologizing. “I’m sorry. I’m just—”  

“I know. Let’s go.”

  
  


***

  
  


We’d barely left the house before the rain started to come down in blinding sheets. Francis cursed as he looked for a place to pull over, leaning forward and squinting as the windshield wipers flew furiously back and forth, jets of water pouring off the blades. At last, we found a small gravel road and turned down it, stopping a few yards in. 

Neither of us spoke for a while, the relentless patter of the rain on the car’s roof like the wrath of God, our transgressions made manifest in the fury of nature. The afternoon had been unbearable, my skin prickling with the weight of what we’d done, an endless parade of Bunny-clones surrounding me. I saw his boyish gait in Hugh, heard his garrulous voice in Patrick, saw his lively eyes in his father. It was impossible to stifle the eddies of guilt churning in the pit of my stomach, seizing me with the destructive urge to kneel before his parents and confess. Even Henry was looking a bit ashen-faced, although Camilla largely attributed that to another one of his debilitating headaches. I was grateful Francis had suggested leaving for a bit. 

There was something about the suburban domesticity of the Corcoran house — the wobbling, fat legs of toddlers with grubby hands, the mention of Happy Meals, the inane discussions of sports teams and nine to five office jobs, the wood paneling in the den — that exacerbated the depressing atmosphere until I felt I might involuntarily start screaming and never stop. At least the constant din of activity had allowed us to slip away virtually undetected. But now that we were free, I wasn’t sure what to do.

“Jesus Richard, can you say something?! Kiss me, slap me, I don’t much care which. I feel like I’m going insane.”

In lieu of responding, I crawled to the backseat and shrugged off my jacket. He cast me a skeptical glance before climbing over to join me, wasting no time in straddling me and devouring my mouth. It was far from gentle, lips and tongue crashing together like we could chase the outside world away if only we kissed hard enough. I wriggled out of my shirt, and he bit my neck, lips trailing down to suck on a nipple until it hurt. I didn’t care. I understood what he’d meant. Although I wanted the pleasure of his body, pain felt like atonement, and I was ready for him to dole out whichever one he chose to bestow on me.

I unzipped his trousers and reached inside, but he was flaccid. As I stroked him, I realized I was too. We fumbled in the backseat for a while, breathless and grunting like animals, our touches less like affection and more like a fight for dominion, but eventually we gave up, Francis settling beside me with a defeated sigh.

“I don’t think — I don’t think I can get hard,” he whispered, his voice small and tight. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

“Me either,” I whispered back, pondering the puerile way we kept ending up in cars together, groping each other with a neediness that couldn’t be satisfied. The rain hadn’t let up, and when I opened my mouth to speak again, I saw that Francis was crying in earnest.

“Do you feel like a vile, despicable thing? Because I do,” he choked out, and I wrapped my arms around him, cradling the back of his head in my hand, rubbing his back as he sobbed into my neck, his hands clawing at my shoulders.

I had the absurd inclination that I should tell him I loved him, except I knew that wasn’t quite right. Yet everything I thought to replace it with sounded even worse.  _ I couldn’t make it through this without you. Your touch means everything to me right now.  _ Love was a foreign concept to me, something for smiling couples in jewelry commercials and families in travel brochures, something stock and safe and clinical and meaningless. But, I thought as I kissed his face and told him it would be okay, if this wasn’t love, what was? I was in no shape to riddle it out. All I knew was that I felt something deeply, a fierce desire to care for him and to have him care for me, and I wanted to express it, to break up this endless acreage of despair, these grey, hopeless plains expanding into the infinite distance that seemed to define our future.

“Richard, are you okay?” He suddenly lifted his head, concern written in the wrinkles of his forehead.

“Why are you asking me that?” My voice sounded alien to my ears, tinny and faraway.

“You’re crying.”

“No, I’m not.” I frowned, puzzled at the broken, high-pitched tint of my words.

“Yes, you are, darling,” he said softly, wiping the moisture from my cheek and brandishing his wet fingertips. I swiped at my face, staring down at my hands, rubbing the salty tears into my skin and wondering if they’d all looked down at their bloody hands in wonderment on that night, waking in the woods, perched on delirium’s edge.

I felt a twinge of shame at my weakness, knowing Henry would reprimand us if he saw how hysterical we were. Just as swiftly as the swell of emotion had come, it ebbed to be replaced by anger. Anger at Henry for instilling this pride, leading me to think of brutality and stoicism as virtues, anger at myself for buying into it, anger at myself for having the potential within me in the first place, a twisted, deformed sense of morals at my core that he could easily exploit. Can’t draw water from an empty well.

_ We are monsters,  _ I thought, grappling with a self-loathing that ran so pervasively deep, I didn’t know it had been lurking there all along,  _ every last one of us. _

  
  


***

  
  


Our absence didn’t go unnoticed.

“Where have you been?” Henry asked as we descended the basement stairs. He was seated in the corner like a petulant parent waiting for his disobedient children to return, clad in black, scotch and soda in hand, gaze as stern and discomfiting as ever.

“We just needed to get out for a little while,” Francis said meekly, sitting on one of cots. I sat down next to him.

By contrast, I was having none of this. I had worked myself up into a tight ball of righteous rage, most of which was directed at Henry, on the drive back to the house.

“Why do you need to know where we were?” I asked more sharply than was necessary. Francis flashed me an imploring look, but I ignored it.

“Charles’s behavior has been very erratic. He is approaching unhinged. I feel the need to follow up on any drastic changes in anyone’s behavior at this point in time,” Henry responded, the frustrating lack of emotion in his voice only serving to irk me even more.

“You mean you feel the need to control everyone.” That surprised even me, but my mind was on fire with revelation after revelation, the various points at which Henry had manipulated me beginning to fall into place. I was questioning everything, most of all whether or not I’d ever been more to him than a convenience. 

“Someone has to.” 

My head swiveled in his direction at that. Somehow I’d expected him to deny it, but maybe he was just as exhausted as the rest of us. Maybe pretenses were no longer worth it. Francis lit a cigarette, his knee bouncing up and down. 

“We’re in an extremely delicate position,” Henry continued, “one beam out of place and the entire house collapses in a ruinous heap. While the two of you leaving to fornicate in Francis’s car wouldn’t normally concern me—”

“Fornicate?! Are you a fundamentalist preacher in a Midwestern corn-fed town, Henry? I must admit you do have the countenance for it, not to mention the wardrobe. You were born to keep sheep under your thumb with one fearsome look. Did you hear that, Richard? Better pack your bags, Jezebel. We’re headed straight for eternal damnation. Really, Henry, what does it matter who we go to bed with?” 

Francis laughed, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling, and although his joke felt rather pointed, it seemed to dispel the tension. Everyone paused for a beat.

“It might matter very little or it might matter quite a lot,” Henry calmly stated. “I wanted to make sure you’re both still focused on what’s important. That’s all.”

“We’re plenty focused, Henry. We’re so focused we can’t keep our fucking eyes open anymore. Can’t you just let us…”

I trailed off. Why was I asking him to  _ let _ me do anything? When exactly had I handed the reins over to him, letting him sit at the helm of my life? 

“Have whatever dalliances you need to in order to keep yourself... relaxed, as it were. I merely wanted to make sure neither of you lose yourself in quite the way Charles seems to be determined to lose himself.” 

“We’re fine, Henry. Just needed a break from this hellhole.” Francis pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled deeply.

I was tempted to stoke the fires of dissent, to ask Henry why losing ourselves mattered now when it was the very thing that had gotten us here in the first place. Wasn’t Henry’s desire to lose himself the impetus for the bacchanal? Angry as I was, I knew pushing him further wasn’t the best choice. 

“Of course,” Henry said in a suspiciously reasonable manner. He stood up and regarded us coolly. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I might try to find a quieter place to lie down.”

When he was out of earshot, Francis sighed.

“I can’t believe you said that to him.” 

“What?” 

“About controlling everything.” 

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” 

“Absolutely, it’s just…” 

“What?” 

Francis twisted around, craning his neck to see if anyone was near. Henry had closed the basement door behind him, the muffled sounds of the packed house leaking through the cracks. Satisfied, he turned back to me, sucking on his cigarette and lowering his voice.

“Aren’t you scared of him? Of what he might do? If you think about this,  _ all _ of this, it’s always Henry at the center of everything. I’m not trying to absolve myself of responsibility, but whose idea was it to have a bacchanal? To kill Bunny? Who decides what we do and when we do it and what stories we’re supposed to tell the police? I guarantee he hasn’t been the wreck we’ve all been. Oh he’s worried all right, but only for himself, only for getting caught. He hasn’t stopped to think about missing Bunny or to feel something  _ human _ like guilt. He’s not clutching his…” Francis averted his eyes and took another drag, letting out a shaky exhale, “he’s not holding someone in the backseat of a car and crying until his chest aches. I always knew he was… well, how he  _ is _ , but I don’t know… it’s taken on a much more disturbing bend now. These days, he positively makes my skin crawl. Am I an awful person for saying this?”

“No. You’re not saying anything I wasn’t already thinking.” I sighed and put my arm around him. 

“Thank you for being here.” He kissed my cheek and leaned his head on my shoulder. “I think I’d have gone completely mad already if it weren’t for you.”

“The feeling is very mutual.”

Francis stubbed out his cigarette on the concrete floor, walking over to toss it into the metal garbage can.

“Do you think we can fit on one of these?” Francis asked with a chuckle, waving his hand at the cot. 

“We can if you lie on top of me.”

He cocked an eyebrow and canted his head.

“You know, I keep waiting for you to have another heterosexual panic.”

“I told you I wouldn’t.”

“People lie… and we’re the worst of them all, don’t you think?”

“Maybe knowing there are things I have to lie about forever makes me want to be truthful when I can. Come here.” 

I lied down and patted my chest, opening my arms to beckon him closer. He walked over to me, draping his lean form on top of mine. I loved the weight of him pressing me into the cot, his warmth seeping into my bones, thawing the frost from the dank, hidden depths of myself that I didn’t want to confront. The soothing, even cadence of his breath lulled me to sleep, and this time, I didn’t dream of anything at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song on the radio is Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat." I hope you like how this chapter plays with canon. I really wanted a bit of the storyline to deal with how Henry might take the news of them pairing off, a perceived disruption to group solidarity that might make him wary. Also, this is unbeta-ed because I don't have a fandom friend who knows this book who I can rope into helping so let me know if there are ever any glaring typos!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if I've earned an E rating at this point... I'm so used to writing much more detailed sex scenes that this feels pretty M to me, but let me know what you think. ;)

Unsustainable though it was, after we all returned to Hampden, we found ourselves awash in an incongruous sense of freedom. The campus was idyllic once again, fragrant, crisp spring air infused with honeysuckle, a blanket of verdant lawns and lush trees. 

However, I can only speak for Francis and me. The rest of our group ricocheted to their separate corners like the scattered remnants of a bullet after impact. I wasn’t sure if they had fallen victim to all the unanticipated wounds, the scars our choices had inflicted on us, ugly consequences that the days under the Corcoran’s roof had highlighted in glaring detail, or if they simply desired some solitude after so much forced togetherness.

I didn’t spend much time dwelling on it. I was too busy falling in love. Occasionally, it crossed my mind that it was a rather inopportune time for this to happen, that I was allowing myself something I surely didn’t deserve after what we’d done to Bunny, but then Francis would smile at me, kiss my cheek, or absently run his fingers through my hair while reading, a gesture that had become so automatic, so domestic and comfortable without either of us stopping to question it, and I couldn’t find it in me to care about what I did or didn’t deserve. Suddenly, that which had seemed unattainable was in reach, and I began to convince myself that we really could put all of this behind us as though it had been a collective hallucination that, while morbid and cloying in its tenacity, could still be shaken off with the healing powers of time and distance. I fantasized about how Francis and I might spend our last year together at Hampden, gradually separating ourselves from the twins and Henry in that instinctual way couples do, nesting in his apartment, spending sunny days studying on the lawn with his head in my lap, having picnics at the house in the country, Francis with his shirt unbuttoned halfway, sprawled out on a blanket like a sun-drenched poet lounging in the lavender fields of Provence, his lips wine-stained and kissable. We were thoroughly engrossed in one another at the expense of any inclusion of the outside world, the landscape of his body growing as familiar to me as my own.

There is one day I remember with particular fondness. We spent the afternoon in Manchester, lingering over a good meal on the patio of a restaurant whose name I no longer remember. We ate seared, herb-encrusted salmon that melted on my tongue and drank oaky, buttery Chardonnay that the sunlight passed through, the wine glittering like the lake had on that day Camilla cut her foot. It was the first time I’d ever witnessed Francis shopping for clothes in high end stores, the shrewd, purse-lipped look he wore as he evaluated the fabrics, pinching the hem of a jacket between thumb and forefinger, smiling salesmen buzzing around him as though they could smell his wealth. Despite my vehement objections, he insisted on buying me something.

“The thing about this stubborn propensity of yours to reject lavish gifts is that, while it’s meant to deter me, I find it terribly attractive. It only makes me want to spoil you more, and since you cannot forcibly bar me from using my own money, I’m going to win in the end. It would be in your best interest to concede defeat, don’t you agree?”

I blushed fiercely at his words, sifting through a rack of blazers to give my nervous hands something to do.

“Fine. Something small.”

“Oh, trust that I already anticipated that and have selected the perfect thing.” 

He placed a greeny-bronze silk tie with tangerine polka dots in my hand. It was gorgeous and perfectly suited to my coloring.

“Never underestimate the way a distinguishing splash of color can turn a monochromatic suit into something more exciting,” he murmured near my ear, discreetly running a hand down my back. I recall the salesmen shooting us knowing glances, but they didn’t appear to be unsettled by our subtly amorous gestures. If anything, there was a conspiratorial note to their smiles that suggested a thrill at being allowed this covert glimpse into our relationship. I suppose the keeping of secrets is second nature to those who serve the rich.

When we returned to Francis’s apartment, he took a bath and I, perched in a chair at the edge of the tub as he smoked a cigarette and sipped from a tumbler of whiskey, read Baudelaire aloud as he playfully chided me for not being able to read it in the original French. As he rose from the water, he propped his foot on the porcelain rim, running a towel along his bare leg. I leaned forward and, taking his foot in my hands, his heel resting in my palm, I kissed the arch of his foot and the slender line of his ankle. I was hard just from the sight of him, clean, ivory skin, red hair between his legs, dark and matted from the water, the droplets gathered in the hollow of his collarbone that I wanted to taste.

He didn’t finish drying off. We stumbled blindly to the bedroom, my clothes wet in the places where his moist skin had pressed against me, our lips and limbs locked in a passionate embrace until we fell backward on the bed. 

“I just want to look at you for a minute,” I whispered, and he stretched out on his back, displaying his body with a flirtatious smile, eyes that said  _ I know you adore me.  _

I was reminded of Henry Miller’s description of the French prostitutes in  _ Tropic of Cancer,  _ the way he loved their confident swagger, their command of their bodies, their powerful conviction in knowing they had what you wanted. Knowing Francis would undoubtedly frown at the comparison, seeing only the vulgarity instead of the poetic intent, I kept it to myself.

Starting at his delicate ankle once again, I kissed my way up to his groin, swiping my tongue along the crease of his upper thigh. He squirmed and made a delightful little moan. I took him into my mouth — the day before, he’d done a very thorough job of telling me what he liked, his lurid instructions and enthusiastic praise more exciting than I could bear, the ache between my legs almost painful by the time I finished, the bitter, salty taste of him spilling down my throat — but after a few seconds, he nudged me away and pulled me up the bed until I was lying on top of him.

“Come here, sweet boy,” he whispered, chuckling victoriously when I whimpered at the term of endearment. “I want you inside me.”

He kissed and nipped at my neck, and while the prospect was extremely enticing, I still feared disappointing him.

“I’ve never done that before,” I confessed quietly, burying my face in the pillow underneath him.

“Dearest Richard, if you think I didn’t already know that…”

I groaned, and he squeezed my waist.

“Now now, don’t be sullen about it. Are you under the impression that I don’t find it immensely gratifying to give you all of these firsts? That moment when your eyes darken, when you realize how much you like it, how much you want it, how much you want  _ me…  _ there’s no drug better than that.” He gently lifted my head from the pillow and kissed me, his legs around my waist, his arms around my shoulders. “Take your clothes off.”

I obeyed, and he retrieved a small glass tube from a nightstand drawer. I hid my smile. There was something highly amusing about one so graceful and refined as Francis sharing the carnal nightstand drawer habits of the rest of us while also still managing to put a pretentious spin on it. I almost teased him about where one would go to buy lubricant in a glass container and whether or not it was made with scented oils designed to match his pheromones or some other such nonsense, but when I turned around and saw him, legs spread, a pillow beneath his hips, his sultry eyes at half-mast, I couldn’t form a single thought.

He held out his hand, and I offered mine, watching as he drizzled the sticky liquid onto two of my fingers and placed them where he wanted them. I remember being surprised by how warm and tight he was, constricting around me but taking me so easily, his body locking me in an embrace as though it wanted to keep me there for all time. He showed me how to stroke him from the inside out, how to build that glorious pressure until he was flushed and panting. 

“Does it feel good?” It wasn’t as though I didn’t know the answer, but I craved his approval in the bedroom with a ferocity I can hardly articulate. Compelled by some mixture of deep-seated inadequacy and lewd exhilaration, I was always so needy for Francis to tell me how pleased he was, how well I was doing.

“It feels perfect. Do you like it? Do you like that it’s me?” His earnest eyes stopped my heart, and I knew in an instant what he was really asking.  Instead of being wanted and needed for who he was, Francis had often been nothing but a warm, convenient body, a surrogate for men like Charles to project their desires for other people. I looked into his eyes, sparkling with lust but an undercurrent of doubt simmering beneath it all, and thought about the two of us, me pining for Camilla while he chased after Charles, both of us driven to want what we could never really have. Francis had been there the whole time, accessible and uncomplicated, a man who made his intentions clear instead of shrouding every word in dubious intent. Maybe it scared me. Maybe it scared both us. Maybe we feared the reciprocation we chased, swaddling ourselves in the mercurial but familiar embrace of pessimism and isolation. I gazed at his lovely face, the comforting sincerity in the way he looked back at me, and scolded myself for being so myopic.

“I’m glad it’s you. I’m  _ so _ glad it’s you,” I assured him between breathless kisses, my fingers working him open as he hitched his knees higher, his hands hungrily roaming my back.

The memory of making love to Francis for the first time is vivid and hazy all at once. It comes to me not in detailed images but in snapshots of blooming color and pulsing heat, emotive fragments of a larger picture, the thought of which still sends me into a glassy-eyed reverie. His searing gaze as I entered him, his humid breath on my neck as I began to thrust, the delirious moment I told him I didn’t know it could feel like this, my mind running through all of my past intimacies, unable to recall a time when I had focused on the person underneath me like this, when the act had ceased to be perfunctory and become a raw, stripped nerve of connection instead, something whose intense vulnerability both terrified and elated me. He clasped my face in his hands and chanted a chorus of  _ I know I know I know, _ and everything was dizzyingly real, the poignant, sharp beauty of truly existing in the moment nearly making me weep. 

Maybe I did. 

I don’t know for certain. 

But I remember the way he said my name when he came, the way his body trembled and seized around me, the way the inside of him clung to me with the sweetest desperation, a reminder that my pleasure belonged to him, an ownership I surrendered with overwhelming gratitude.

Afterward, we lay on our sides, my chest pressed to his back, my arm slung across his stomach, sweat cooling on our skin. The window was open, a balmy breeze billowing the curtains, the calls of birds and the rustle of leafy trees the only pleasant sounds drifting into the room.

“Did your mother ever hold you like this?” I was coming to realize how touch-starved I’d been all my life. Growing accustomed to Francis’s hands on me, the incidental, chaste touches he gave me throughout the day, the mollifying press of his fingers on my shoulder or the small of my back, had made me see the painful truth of this. If he thought it an odd turn in conversation, he didn’t remark on it.    

“Of course, when I was little. Didn’t yours?” His voice had that languorous quality it always acquired after sex, his speech slower and more relaxed, the pitches of anxiety eradicated for the time being.

“No… or if she did, I don’t remember it.” I couldn't recall a time when my mother had greeted me with anything warmer than indifference.

Francis turned around in my arms, bringing us face to face.

“What monsters does home hold for you, Richard?”

“What does it hold for you?” 

“Don’t be evasive. It’s never been a good look for you, and you’re not too terribly adept at it either.” 

I traced his collarbone with a fingertip, kissed a mole just below the crook of his arm.

“My father was an abusive drunk, and my mother routinely forgot I existed. What else is there to say?”

“You’re using the past tense. Aren’t they still alive?”

“Not to me.”

“I’m sorry, darling.” He kissed my forehead, my nose, and then my lips.

“Do you remember the first thing you ever said to me?”

“Oh yes,” he replied with a mischievous laugh.

“What would you have done if I’d said yes?"

“Gone to bed with you, of course. Skipped Greek and spent all day taking you apart until you begged me to stop,” he said with a wicked grin.

“Admit it, you only asked because you thought I wouldn’t understand you. All of you and your supercilious testing… one initiation after another.” 

“Well, it would be remiss of me not to point out that I was right. You  _ didn’t _ understand me.” Francis smiled, and we fell into a soothing silence for a few minutes. “We weren’t really that bad, were we?”

“I don’t know… every time I thought you all finally trusted me, I uncovered another secret. I think you’re the only one not keeping anything from me. I don’t even want to think about how many more secrets Henry has.” Now that everything had deteriorated, it sickened me to think about those early days, the sharp stab of envy, the undying need to impress everyone, to invent intriguing lies about myself, wagging my tail and performing tricks like a new dog grateful for its home, scared its owner will grow bored of it.

“You know, I used to think you were a bit in love with Henry.”

“Why?”

“Oh come on…” Francis rolled his eyes and then narrowed them when I remained impassive. “You hung on his every word like he was Plato himself.”

I reluctantly nodded, slightly mortified at Francis calling attention to this.

“It wasn’t love… enthralled is a better word.” 

“Is there a difference?” 

“Several. For starters, I wouldn’t want this with Henry.” I stroked his stomach as I said it, but now that he’d planted the idea, I wasn’t entirely sure of its falsehood. If this year had taught me anything, it was just how pitifully little I knew about myself. After everything, that revelation shouldn’t have been a surprise. On further thought, disheartening is perhaps a more apt word. For if I didn’t know how I felt about Henry, how deep did my alliance run? What would I have done for him if I hadn’t awakened to this misguided devotion? Or, the better question, what  _ wouldn’t _ I have done?

The anguish must have shown on my face because Francis pulled me closer, peppering my neck with kisses. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to turn this into an interrogation. I always turn a good mood into a dreadful one, don’t I?” 

“It’s not one of your more attractive qualities.” 

He chuckled as I wrapped my arms around him, and I hoped he knew I didn’t really mean it. Like all of him, it was strangely and confoundingly charming. 

“What made you change your mind about me?” he asked, turning us over until I was on my back, his head on my chest.

“I don’t think I changed it. I just let myself want you. The way I used to watch you… I tried to convince myself it was something objective, like looking at a beautiful painting. But when I would let myself think about it… I didn’t know if I wanted you or wanted to be you.”

There was a naked vulnerability to Francis’s pensive moods, the way he was prone to insecurity, his need for reassurance that his affection was reciprocated. He was like a wounded baby bird abandoned by its mother in a field; I wanted to take care of him when he was like that, and in hindsight I see it might have also been a deflection. Easier to tend to someone else than confront my own inner turmoil. 

“At one time or another, couldn’t you have said that about any of us? We’ve all been obsessed with each other in different ways…” 

“Francis,” I lifted his chin until he met my eyes, “I don’t want anyone but you.”

“Good.” He smiled and kissed me, his hands sinking into my hair.

How would I have behaved if I’d known that would be the last Hampden evening of its kind? Would my happiness have been overshadowed by fretting over what was to come? Or would I have treasured it all the more, basking in every nuance, every sight and sound and smell, determined to commit it to memory, to sustain me through the remaining weeks of my first year there? All I know for certain is that I’ll never forget Francis’s face that night, the open, youthful innocence of it belying the baleful weight of everything that came before and everything that would come after. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things: I added an "angst with a happy ending" tag since this chapter leaves you on an ominous note. Some things will go to shit just as they do at the end of the book, BUT I wanted to assure you that Francis will get a happier ending. <3 Richard Papen has a praise kink a mile wide and no one can tell me otherwise, that description of the tie is lifted from the book so that small portion belongs to Donna Tartt, and Francis "canon generous person who gives his friends his old suits" Abernathy would be a bit of doting "let me give you lovely things" rich boyfriend imo.


End file.
